A magnetically enhanced RF discharge source for metastable krypton production.

We describe a high intensity metastable Kr source based on a helical resonator RF discharge. By adding an external B-field to the discharge source, the metastable Kr flux is enhanced. The effect of geometric configuration and magnetic field strength has been studied and optimized experimentally. Compared to the helical resonator discharge source without an external B-field, the new source showed an enhancement factor of 4-5 in producing metastable Kr beams. This improvement has a direct impact on the radio-krypton dating applications as it can increase the atom count rate, resulting in a higher analytical precision.